You do know that in I15 they already decreased the amount of space that Custom Critters take up? I was easily able to add in a 3rd Lt. and 2nd Boss, plus add auras to all of the Customs in the group, with lots of room left over. I can easily add in a couple more without running out of room, when the arc had been running out of room before.
Justice Blues, Tech/Tank, Inv/SS
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Fighting The Future Trilogy
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What I would like to see is the ability to customize the enemies actions. Kinda like the gambit system in Final Fantasy 12.
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You do know that in I15 they already decreased the amount of space that Custom Critters take up? I was easily able to add in a 3rd Lt. and 2nd Boss, plus add auras to all of the Customs in the group, with lots of room left over. I can easily add in a couple more without running out of room, when the arc had been running out of room before.
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Yes I am aware. You're still very limited in what you can use. Try making custom groups with more than 2 minions, 2 Lt.s, 2 Bosses, 2 EBs and an AV. It still takes up a lot of space.
Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper
Founding Member and Leader : Shadow-Force
Co-Leader: Council of Heroes
"Whatever evils come this way... we will be there to stop them."
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You do know that in I15 they already decreased the amount of space that Custom Critters take up? I was easily able to add in a 3rd Lt. and 2nd Boss, plus add auras to all of the Customs in the group, with lots of room left over. I can easily add in a couple more without running out of room, when the arc had been running out of room before.
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Yes I am aware. You're still very limited in what you can use. Try making custom groups with more than 2 minions, 2 Lt.s, 2 Bosses, 2 EBs and an AV. It still takes up a lot of space.
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Okay, the group I was talking about has 4 minions, 3 Lts, and 2 bosses. (The there is room for the AV, but I don't need him for this arc so removed him from the group.) That is 9 custom characters, same as your list. The other custom group in the arc has 3 custom critters, 2 Bosses and 1 Lt., plus recolored versions of 7 standard mobs, along with the regular versions of all of the standard mobs. So I am up to 12, with room for at least 2 more. And every single one of the custom critters has some kind of aura, and most of them have a customized weapon.
The 4 mission arc is at like 82% right now. I could easily add in another mission, but the story doesn't require it. My problem these days is fitting necessary information into the 1000 character limits. 
So I have a wide variety of customs already in the mission, with the wonderful option of adding in more for flavor. Yes more room would be nice, but the changes that have already happened have made things much better.
Justice Blues, Tech/Tank, Inv/SS
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Fighting The Future Trilogy
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You do know that in I15 they already decreased the amount of space that Custom Critters take up? I was easily able to add in a 3rd Lt. and 2nd Boss, plus add auras to all of the Customs in the group, with lots of room left over. I can easily add in a couple more without running out of room, when the arc had been running out of room before.
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Yes I am aware. You're still very limited in what you can use. Try making custom groups with more than 2 minions, 2 Lt.s, 2 Bosses, 2 EBs and an AV. It still takes up a lot of space.
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Okay, the group I was talking about has 4 minions, 3 Lts, and 2 bosses. (The there is room for the AV, but I don't need him for this arc so removed him from the group.) That is 9 custom characters, same as your list. The other custom group in the arc has 3 custom critters, 2 Bosses and 1 Lt., plus recolored versions of 7 standard mobs, along with the regular versions of all of the standard mobs. So I am up to 12, with room for at least 2 more. And every single one of the custom critters has some kind of aura, and most of them have a customized weapon.
The 4 mission arc is at like 82% right now. I could easily add in another mission, but the story doesn't require it. My problem these days is fitting necessary information into the 1000 character limits.
So I have a wide variety of customs already in the mission, with the wonderful option of adding in more for flavor. Yes more room would be nice, but the changes that have already happened have made things much better.
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You're just proving what I have been saying. What do you do if you would like to have a third custom group in your arc? Or a fourth or more?
If one or two custom groups are taking up that much file space (in your example ~82%), it can hopefully be made to work more efficiently. Alternatively, allow us a means to purchase greater file space along with the upcoming additional arc slots.
Yes, the changes that have been made are very nice and do help, yet IMO there is still room for improvement.
Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper
Founding Member and Leader : Shadow-Force
Co-Leader: Council of Heroes
"Whatever evils come this way... we will be there to stop them."
That is 2 custom groups, with 12 completely custom critters, 7 modified standard mobs (which also take up extra room), and 4 missions with details in the arc. I was at 100% before I15, with 2 less custom mobs, no modified standards, less details on the customs I did have, and a few less clues due to lack of space. Now I have lots of room to do what I want. Another arc had just under 90%, now it is under 60%, and it only had the custom group with the 3 custom critters in it. Frankly that is a huge improvement, and while I don't know programing or how the system works, I can't really see much more being done.
If you mean being able to have 3 or even 4 complete custom groups, with all custom critters and a variety at all levels, I would bet it will never happen. I could probably go create an arc right now with a dozen custom groups, but they would only have 1 or 2 completely custom mobs with other things being handled by remade standard mobs.
I do know one thing for certain. If they raised the limit to 200k, the next day there would be people on these forums complaining that was not enough.
You have some really great ideas in your list. I would frankly put more space at the bottom of all them.
Justice Blues, Tech/Tank, Inv/SS
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Fighting The Future Trilogy
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I know what you're saying and I see it as kind of a "kobyashi maru" in terms of slot space.
You can have an unlimited amount of custom groups right now, but you're limited to using ~2 or 3 completely decked out groups in one arc. If you want to introduce more custom groups, you need to use up another arc slot. It would be nice to be able to use more, such as 1 custom group for each mission in an arc. Having to stick with existing in-game enemy factions limits creativity in many respects.
True, people would complain about 200K being too small, but people would complain if the file size was 1MB or 100 gig. People will complain regardless of what the devs do. That shouldn't deter them from doing anything or trying to make improvements/enhancements to existing tools.
Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper
Founding Member and Leader : Shadow-Force
Co-Leader: Council of Heroes
"Whatever evils come this way... we will be there to stop them."
Wanted to add a couple more items to this list;
[color= orange]"Set Dressing" for maps[/color]
It would be great to add some "set dressing" to maps that give it the flavor of what it is being used for in the story. For example, the ability to add "tech equipment" to a Tech Lab map to make it appear more like a laboratory. Think of having an option to add "Tech Set Dressing" which pulls from items that we have in creating bases. Same would go for arcane.
This could also include adding NPC civilians. I was running some arcs this weekend that took place in Atlas Park during a "parade", yet there was nothing there but enemy NPCs. These would add a great deal of immersion.
[color= orange]Add some of the Base Items as Defendable or Destructible Objects[/color]
I ran two arcs where you had to "destroy the enemy base generator" that was a very large map, supposedly powered by this tiny generator. I think it would add a lot to immersion and challenge to have items like the Fusion Generator as an item in the MA.
Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper
Founding Member and Leader : Shadow-Force
Co-Leader: Council of Heroes
"Whatever evils come this way... we will be there to stop them."
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"Be Introduced to New Contact"
When we complete a story arc outside of AE, our contacts introduce us to someone new. I've run quite a few story arcs in AE that continue a larger story in another arc. It would be nice to have an option to have the contact for one arc "introduce you" to the next contact so you do not have to return to the terminal and search for the next one in the chain. I am thinking all that would be required here is a single field to enter the next arc ID into.
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Can you use the ending message for this in the meantime?
"Congratulations, you saved the puppies, but the kitties are still in danger! Go see ContactJoe (Arc #) to save the kitties!"
You can, but making it work as a link as it already does with non-AE contacts would be much more recognizable. It also avoids having to run to the AE terminal to search for the new arc.
Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper
Founding Member and Leader : Shadow-Force
Co-Leader: Council of Heroes
"Whatever evils come this way... we will be there to stop them."
Had another thought to add;
Tie AE into the SG Mission Computer
It's often been suggested that the Mission Computer should have more use (beyond the SF), especially since CoP has been offline for ages.
There have been many posts suggesting things like "Danger Rooms" or "Simulators" etc. that are specific to a SG/VG. Adding access to the AE from the Mission Computer may kill 2 birds with 1 stone in this instance.
The idea is to have the Mission Computer be able to create a SG/VG specific arc that anyone in the SG/VG could access. Granted, this can be done already in the AE, but it adds a bit of immersion to have it be accessed from inside the base.
If possible, this arc could also offer a slight prestige increase to members within the SG/VG. I don't know what would be considered a "fair" increase... just tossing out the idea.
I also don't know if this should be limited to 1 arc per group or it can have as many as members are willing to create. Of course, it would use up one of the creators arc slots.
Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper
Founding Member and Leader : Shadow-Force
Co-Leader: Council of Heroes
"Whatever evils come this way... we will be there to stop them."
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There have been many posts suggesting things like "Danger Rooms" or "Simulators" etc. that are specific to a SG/VG. Adding access to the AE from the Mission Computer may kill 2 birds with 1 stone in this instance.
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I had a complete thread about this, that got purged. That was months before AE even became known as a planned-feature...
I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
Had another thought...
Gadgetry (Temp Powers) in MA
I recall reading something about the Devs wanting to make the fight against Reichsman in the new TF a "Gadget Fight", and this got me to thinking... why don't we have more of these in MA (or in the game in general)?
Why don't we have shrink rays? Ultimate Nullifiers? Rings of Power? We can craft temp powers and get some nifty temp powers on various arcs/TFs, why not make them available in MA?
I'm sure that the ability to drop temp powers in the MA is on the drawing board and will get added at some point. It would be great for authors to choose from a list of available temp powers that can drop from completing X objective. These might need to be set to last the duration of the ARC though.
From an immersion standpoint, this could add a lot of flavor to a story as well.
Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper
Founding Member and Leader : Shadow-Force
Co-Leader: Council of Heroes
"Whatever evils come this way... we will be there to stop them."
Just a couple of ideas I had for improving the Mission Architect system. I realize some have workarounds already, but I wanted to post this to throw the ideas out there.
**New Features:**
New Mission Detail - "Prevent Negotiation(s)"
I envision this working by combining the available options for "Fight A Boss" and "Add Battle". It would allow us to create scenarios where more than one faction (probably limit to 2 factions like the "Add Battle" allows) are negotiating with the other without having to use up two "Add Boss" options and finding a map that allows for 2 boss spawns in the same location.
"Be Introduced to New Contact"
When we complete a story arc outside of AE, our contacts introduce us to someone new. I've run quite a few story arcs in AE that continue a larger story in another arc. It would be nice to have an option to have the contact for one arc "introduce you" to the next contact so you do not have to return to the terminal and search for the next one in the chain. I am thinking all that would be required here is a single field to enter the next arc ID into.
Special Multi-Objective Boss Spawns
It would be nice to be able to create a scenario similar to the end of the Statesman's Task Force where you have to defeat Lord Recluse's gang in order for him to spawn. Limit it to perhaps 4 or 5 required objectives that have to be completed before a boss spawns.
"Generic" skins for existing maps
It would be great to see a few of the existing maps (like Arachnos and Council) available generically skinned without the group logos on them. This is mainly for immersion purposes when creating "secret lairs" or "bases" for custom groups.
Alternatively, perhaps allow us to select a map and then select the "skin for it". So, for example, instead of having options for "Warehouse - City of Heroes" and "Warehouse - City of Villains", just have the option for "Warehouse" and then let the author pick a "regular" or "abandoned" skin.
Defensive Objects
These could work similar to collection objects, only be "defensive" type weaponry as seen in the faction bases of Bloody Bay or at the Council base in Striga. For example; wall turretts that pop-out after completing a "collection item".
**Enhancements:**
Colored text for required Collection objectives
I've seen many, many story arcs that try to do this, but wind up using an inordinate amount of text to explain what color they have specified as mandatory for collection objects and what is not. This should be done automatically in the objectives listing on screen.
Character(s) selection for ambushes
It would be nice to be able to select an individual (or perhaps up to 3) individual characters from a group to spawn as an ambush. Sometimes, you may only want Statesman to show up to "save the day" or Lord Recluse to "spoil your plans". It is very immersion breaking to use an existing group or create a custom group intended to be individual characters, but have multiple copies of the same person show up for an ambush.
Improve the Collection Item option
It would be nice to set the text for clue found and clue not found within the same Collection object. When adding a collection item, if I want to create 6 wall safes to check, the first one will contain the clue and correct "you found it!" text, while the others will also show the same "you found it!" text. The editor should allow for this as a single option without having to use many "collections" to the story.
Patrol/Battle Dialogue selection
When creating a mission where there is more than one copy of a patrol, they will all use the same dialogue. If we set up a 5th Column patrol option and set the amount to 5, either allow us to choose how many of those 5 we would want to say the dialogue or allow us to choose separate dialogue for them. Right now, if we want to set different dialogue for them, we have to add multiple patrol options. The same applies to "Add Battle" and enemy groups surrounding objects.
Expanded Use of Custom Characters
Can the method for how custom character data is stored be made more efficient to use less file space? The character creator is a feature that truly sets this game apart from others; it's sad we can't make better use of them in the MA system.
Alternatively, perhaps offer increased file sizes as a purchaseable item from the NCSoft store?
Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper
Founding Member and Leader : Shadow-Force
Co-Leader: Council of Heroes
"Whatever evils come this way... we will be there to stop them."